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Board Gradient

Although I like the wooden board textures that I use for chess and checkers, I was never quite happy with the board texture I used for Reversi for Android (some called it a dirty pool table :-). Therefore, I am trying something new in version 2.3. Instead of using a texture, I use a radial gradient on the board, which gives the impression that the board has been placed under a lamp.

This new approach also slightly reduces the size of the binary. Let me know what you think.

In my MyView class, I have to define how the view should draw itself. The drawing methods get a Canvas as parameter, and I am free to paint and draw whatever I like on there. So in my gaming apps, I would draw the board and pieces, and some notation text.

If you want define more elaborate views that consist of several parts (like buttons, text windows, etc). I would also have a look at the XML approach (with Eclipse, you can simply construct the views graphically, and use the automatically generated XML).

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I have received several questions on how to connect Chess for Android running on an Android device (e.g. a phone) as client to a remote chess server (e.g. a powerful desktop), so I decided to write a small document with detailed instructions.
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After all the fun I had connecting Chess for Android with the Millennium over Bluetooth, I was curious if I could provide similar support for the DGT electronic chess boards. Some of these have Bluetooth capabilities, most use USB connections, and some older models, like the one I have, still use the RS-232 connector.

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I have packaged some chess engines in Chessbase compatible format so that they are directly available in that application. I will also release a new version of Chess for Android that supports this format to keep the chess ecosystem complete.